My Dearest Cal (13 page)

Finally, when Chaney had gone out after making a snippy remark about escaping the kitchen’s icy atmosphere, Cal scowled at her and mumbled, “So?” Stubbornly Marilou wanted him to say the words. She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t play games. Did you find her?”

“I haven’t started looking,” she admitted.

His eyes widened. “Why the hell not?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t get to it.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit that all day long she’d been depressed by the fact that once Cal’s grandmother was found and the two of them were reunited, her role in Cal’s life would be at an end.

“Look, I told you it’s what I wanted, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Maybe I’m still not convinced.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not ever going to jump up and
down in excitement and plead with you to do this. If that’s what you’re waiting for, hell will freeze over first.”

Marilou sighed. That was exactly what she was hoping for, though she knew better than to admit it. It was entirely likely that Cal would never have—or even want—the sort of warm, loving family relationships that she missed so desperately. Maybe she was the one who was foolish and unrealistic for wanting that for him. He seemed to be perfectly content with the life he’d carved out for himself. Who was she to come along and insist that his quiet, solitary existence needed to be crowded with a grandmother and maybe even the mother and father he’d held in contempt for so long now?

As she debated her right to go on interfering, Cal picked up the letter and studied it, turning it over and over in his hands as if just touching it would reveal something to him. “How’re you going to go about finding her?” he asked eventually. “Doesn’t seem as if there’s a lot to go on. We don’t even know her name.”

She took his mild curiosity as a good sign, about the most encouragement she was likely to get. “She’s your maternal grandmother. We know that much. What was your mother’s maiden name?”

“McDonald, I think.”

She frowned. Cal apparently caught her disappointment. He said with a rare touch of wry humor, “You were hoping for something a little more unusual like maybe Capriatti or Janovich?”

Marilou chuckled. “Well, those names probably would be easier to locate in Wyoming, but that’s okay. We can still manage.”

“What city will you look in?”

“I’ll start in Cheyenne, since that’s the postmark. Then, if I don’t come up with anything, I’ll widen the search to the surrounding area. The library probably has phone books. I’ll drive over tomorrow and take a look. If worse comes to worst, I’ll get a map and just start calling information. The population of the whole state isn’t that big.”

“That could take forever.”

“Be thankful the letter didn’t come from New York,” she said.
“That
could take forever. This will be a snap. It may cost a little in long-distance call charges, though.”

“I don’t give a damn about the money. Do what you have to do. What makes you so certain she wants to be found? If she’d really wanted me to find her, wouldn’t she have put a phone number or at least an address on the letter?”

“She’s old and sick. Remember, she even got your address wrong, and you know some detective probably tracked that down for her. You’d be surprised at how many people are careless about little details. That’s why I have a job.”

He tossed the letter back onto the table. “Speaking of that, you’re probably getting anxious to get back,” he said, watching her intently.

“In some ways, I suppose,” she said evasively, surprised that there was really very little she missed
about the place that had been her home all her life. Already Cal’s image was the one that filled her dreams, and his home was beginning to feel like someplace she wanted to belong. That, she reminded herself, was dangerous. Hurriedly she got to her feet and began doing dishes. Suddenly Cal was beside her, dish towel in hand, his heat and scent tempting her.

“I’ll dry,” he offered.

“There’s no need,” she said, anxious for him to go, hungry for him to stay.

“I want to.”

She shrugged, feigning an indifference that was far from the electric awareness she was actually feeling.

They worked in companionable silence for the next few minutes, though Marilou was aware of an increasing tension in the air. She sensed that it had nothing to do with the letter or Cal’s family. She put the last plate in the drainer, rinsed out the sink and started to turn around, only to find herself sandwiched between Cal and the counter. Her gaze shot up to his. Eyes that had darkened to a stormy gray pinned her in place. Warm breath whispered against her cheek.

“Damn, I missed you,” he said, the reluctant words sounding as if they’d been wrenched from deep inside him. He brushed a tender kiss across her forehead, then another on her cheek. Marilou felt as if she were suspended in time, holding her breath, anticipating the instant when his lips would finally claim hers with the hunger that she’d never known with anyone but Cal.

“Did you miss me?” he inquired lazily, letting her
wait, apparently all too sure that the kiss he withheld was one she wanted all too much. “You said you did this morning. Did you mean it?”

She nodded, feeling too weak and shy and breathless to get the actual words out.

He grinned and sprinkled light, teasing kisses across her shoulder. The sweet torment was every bit as arousing as he’d meant it to be. She swallowed hard as he taunted, “Not good enough, sweetheart. Not nearly good enough.”

Something told her that admitting the truth would give Cal an advantage she wasn’t nearly ready for him to have. Summoning up a bold and sassy smile, she said sweetly, “Sorry. It’s the best I can do on short notice.”

As his surprised laughter echoed in the kitchen, she ducked out of his loose embrace and darted for the back door. She made it into the yard before he caught up with her and swung her back into his arms.

“Scaredy-cat,” he said softly, holding her close, his hands looped behind her waist, their thighs touching provocatively.

“I’m not the one who ran away to Kentucky,” she retorted.

“That was a business trip.”

“Of course it was.”

“Well, it was.”

“Oh, I know that. I also know that it wasn’t scheduled to begin until a couple of days later.”

“You think that’s enough evidence to hang a man on?”

She grinned. “First off, I’m not trying to hang you. And second, that’s not my only evidence. I have additional testimony from a very reliable source.”

“What source?”

“Joshua Ames. You do consider him reliable, don’t you? He is the man you turn to in a crisis?”

A dull red crept into his cheeks, and he avoided her eyes. “What the devil does Joshua have to do with anything?” he grumbled.

“It seems he received some sort of desperation phone call at one in the morning and decided he’d better pay an emergency visit. You’d already fled the danger.”

“Joshua was here?”

“You’ve got it. A nice man, by the way.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am. Joshua hasn’t set foot on this place since I bought it. He keeps thinking I’ll come to my senses and buy a company that actually has offices and skyscrapers or at the very least a secretarial pool.”

“I gathered he’s not much on wide open spaces.”

“Joshua prefers his environment to be regulated by air conditioners and dehumidifiers. If a business can’t be computed with a calculator and run by statistics, he figures it isn’t worth knowing about. This place is totally beyond him. Every time I send him a bill for hay and oats, he gets heart palpitations. When I told him I wanted to modernize the breeding shed, he thought I’d gone over the edge.”

“How did the two of you get to be such friends?”

He looked at her finally, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “He moved in down the block, way back when we were kids. He was frail and sickly then. He wore glasses and liked to study. You can just imagine how the other kids bullied him.”

“So you went to his rescue.”

“No more than he came to mine in his own way. His house provided a safe haven from the instability at home.”

“When he showed up here the other day, he was the one running to the rescue. Judging from the looks of him, he outgrew his need for protection rather dramatically.”

Cal drew her closer, regarding her intently. “You thought he was good-looking?” he inquired with a dangerous edge in his voice.

“A hunk, as a matter of fact,” she said deliberately.

“And no doubt he thought you were beautiful.”

“I believe he did mention finding me attractive,” she conceded, then added modestly, “He was probably just being polite.”

Cal’s fingers tangled in her hair and tightened as his mouth came down on hers. “You won’t get polite from me,” he murmured just before the hungry demand of his kiss stole their breath away. There was nothing teasing about the hot, moist possessiveness of his mouth covering hers, nothing reluctant about the bold forays of his tongue. Days of wanting and need exploded in that single urgent kiss.

They were both gasping when he finally broke
away, and there was a bemused expression in his eyes that she was sure was matched in her own. “God, Marilou,” he said raggedly. “What the hell do you do to me?”

“Irritate you?” she suggested, trying for a teasing tone that would deny the thudding of her heart.

He grinned. “Besides that.”

“Whatever it is, you seem to have the same effect on me.”

“What are we going to do about it?” he asked, sounding surprisingly confused and helpless.

“Give it time, Cal. That’s all we can do.”

“How much time can we give it if you’re going running back to Atlanta in another week or so?”

She leveled a serious look at him and said quietly, “Maybe that’s time enough.”

He nodded thoughtfully, then that killer smile of his broke across his face. “Who knows? Maybe it is.” He took her hand. “Come on.”

Startled and still reeling from the implications of their conversation, she gazed at him. “Where?”

“To the barn, my sweet. Where did you think?”

Marilou felt a blush steal over her skin. Cal’s smile broadened. “Don’t you want to say good-night to Dawn’s Magic?”

“Absolutely,” she said at once, but she found she had to work very hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

* * *

It took Marilou the better part of two days to find Mrs. Caroline Whitfield McDonald. The significance
of Cal apparently being named for his grandmother was not lost on her. She began to wonder if his own mother might not be more amenable to a reconciliation than Cal thought.

As she sat daydreaming at the kitchen table, she envisioned a time when this whole house would ring with the sound of laughter and family gossip. Then, daring to take the fantasy one step further, she imagined children underfoot. Hers and Cal’s. Those stubborn, willful little devils, who would charm and torment, just like their father. She sighed. It was a wonderful dream, but that’s all it was. If she doubted that for an instant, Cal’s reaction to her news proved just how wide the gap between fantasy and reality really was.

She found him standing by the rail at the training track, watching as one of the new two-year-olds worked out. His gaze was so intent, he didn’t even notice when she came up alongside him. He held a stopwatch in his hand and kept his eyes glued to the horse as it moved around the near turn. When the new chestnut colt flew by, he nodded in satisfaction.

“A good workout?” she asked.

He turned then without surprise and she realized he had known she was there after all. “Better than good. That horse could be on the track in Miami or New York before the end of the summer. He’ll certainly be ready for the Derby prep races next spring.”

He waved the jockey over and questioned him extensively about the way the horse had run. Marilou listened closely, anxious to learn everything she could
about the training process. Her fascination with the business was growing daily, as was her desire to capture more of the excitement on film. After that one day, she’d put Cal’s camera back where she’d found it and tucked the film in her suitcase. She hadn’t dared to take it out again. It had stirred too many longings, reminded her of too many plans long since abandoned.

Cal turned back to her just then and apparently some of her wistfulness was written on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked at once.

“I was just wishing I’d brought my camera down here.”

“Good heavens,” he teased. “What’s a tourist without a camera?”

When she didn’t smile at his lighthearted banter, he sobered at once. “What am I missing here?”

“Nothing.”

He touched her cheek, the stroke of his finger gentle. “Marilou?”

“It’s just that photography was once very important to me.”

“That’s the career you gave up?”

She nodded. “If you call it a career when I never did a day’s work in it.”

“You studied it in college, though?”

“Yes. I even won a couple of contests. My portfolio was very impressive, according to some of the professors I had.”

“What had you planned to do? Studio work? Photojournalism?”

“I hadn’t really decided. That was one of the reasons I wanted so badly to go to Europe. I thought maybe I’d be able to figure out over there whether I had the talent to do photographic essays, gallery showings.” She grinned ruefully. “I guess you can see why my parents thought it was risky. My ambition was to do the extraordinary. I’m not sure whether the talent lived up to the dream. Even if it had, there were no guarantees I could turn it into a paying career.”

“And your folks didn’t want you to be a starving artist?”

“Especially not way off in Europe all alone.”

“Couldn’t you find a compromise?”

“Maybe if we hadn’t gotten so angry we could have. As it turned out, we never had the chance to try.”

Cal touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“If you miss it so much, why don’t you start over now? You’re hardly too old to be launching a new career.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’m just too scared. I hadn’t touched a camera in years until I borrowed yours the other day. I’ve gotten used to playing it safe. You can’t fail if you don’t try.”